Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass called President Donald Trump’s comments suggesting Iran “take out” the country’s second-biggest city “completely irresponsible” in an interview with MS NOW’s Peter Alexander.

“You don’t say something like that in jest,” Bass told Alexander on “State of Play” on Tuesday. “You are the president of the United States, and your number one job is to protect and defend the American people, not to invite a foreign power to attack a city.”

Bass’ condemnation followed Trump’s comments at a Monday night rally in Grand Island, Nebraska, where he defended the United States’ war with Iran and called current gas prices “a small price to pay for keeping the world safe.”

“They can take out a city,” the president said. “Let them take out Los Angeles. Let them take out San Diego,” which drew some cheers from the crowd. He added that the war would be over “very soon” and that “it’ll end one way or the other.”

Those comments led to criticism not only from Bass, but also from other California Democratic leaders, including Gov. Gavin Newsom. He called Trump’s comments “disgusting and disqualifying” Monday night on X, and on Tuesday, he said they put “a target on two of our biggest cities.” Newsom added that he was directing California’s State Threat Assessment Center “to actively monitor the situation in the event that foreign actors interpret the President’s remarks as an invitation to target California.”

Bass told MS NOW that she’s not aware of any active threats to Southern California stemming from the Iran war.

The mayor of San Diego decried Trump’s comments, writing on X, “San Diego is not collateral damage. We are not expendable. And we are never a ‘small price to pay.’ Keep our city out of your reckless war talk.”

Rep. Sara Jacobs, D-Calif., whose district encompasses San Diego, said in a post on X, “My constituents — including many active duty service members, veterans, and their families — are not acceptable collateral damage in Trump’s stupid war.”

White House Communications Director Steven Cheung waved off the backlash to the president’s remarks.

“The media freakout over President Trump’s comments is not rooted in reality,” he wrote in a post on X. “He was clearly stating U.S. cities would have been threatened if a nuclear Iran hadn’t been stopped.”

Bass told Alexander that Cheung’s statement “has no connection to the words that came out of the president’s mouth.”

“Maybe he would like for us to have heard that,” she continued, “but his words are a record. … I think that he owes my city, Los Angeles, and my neighbors, San Diego, an apology and an explanation, and to say that of course he did not mean for our city to be attacked, and he regrets saying what he did.”

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